Tuesday, January 31, 2012

(Going down to NULL that is… yea, I heard those smirking lols…)KK… looks like we’re gonna bite the apple and learn the cold hard truth about life, the ‘verse and nullsec. For them as follows my mental meanderings here you may remember that back ‘bout a month ago there was some talk about us, our Alliance, going to 0.0, but only one of our Alliance corps ended up takin the plunge, the rest of us stayed in Hi/Lo/WH or wherever we was (if you want, you can find my blatherings about that here).

We needa UP our game:

So… we reformed the Alliance and one of our corps went to null while the rest of us either had no interest or were doin the ‘wait-n-see’… and now we have ‘waited-an-seen’ and it looks like they have settled in ok. One of our Directors took leave of his sens… I mean, took a leave of absence and joined the corp in null and is having a ball and making good ISK. Additionally, during the waitin-n-seein period our corp decided to finally make the effort to move to a C3. We have reached the point in the C2 where we are stagnating and need to shake things up and find some new challenges...

We have reached the point where, no matter how good the ISK is, running C2 Sleepers is getting to be moar like missioning than anything fun. However, we did run sites inna raid C3 some weeks ago and THAT was FUN! We had our usual fleet up, some guys from our corp and some guys from the Allies in our homehole, and we all actually had to warp out at one point to rep and recap due to the damage we were takin! Now that is moar like it! And, as expected, the Lewts and Slavage were substantially better… Now we’re talkin! So I have been sorta pushin for us to find either a C2/Lo/C3 (a C2 WH w/ a static Lowsec hole & a static C3 hole) or a C3/Lo/C<4 (a C3 WH w/ a static Lowsec hole & a static C[anything less than a 4] hole).

The last Sleeper Op for the Nidhogger Class Carrier “HDF Lusankya” under HBHI Command

Why a C<4? Cause people who live in W-space have to be (1) skilled up for the space they live in… which usually goes hand in hand with being skilled higher, or at least usually moar experienced, in pew pew also. If (when) we move up to a C3, the corp we share the C2 with will not be coming with us… so we will lose a POS and a whole corp of support… we will be alone in our new hole and dependant on just us, so we dunt need to have a daily connection to holes what has people in them what ‘have’ to be better skilled and moar experienced than us. What I want is a C2/Lo/C3… live in a C2, have a static Lowsec to Empire with a static C3 to raid... but we gotta find it first… and finding a very specific needle inna large haystack of identical needles would be far, far easier...

But, we have decided to make the move and we have The Three Part Plan:

-Part the First: take down Serenity Station and move ervything to storage in our Empire offices;

-Part the Second: spend some time in nullsec with the corp what moved there… for the change of pace and the experience;

-Part the Third: while in nullsec, grind up some corp ISK in new ways and continue the search for a new homehole;

So yer may be thinking “#1 and #2 I get OK… but how are you going to search for WHs if yer runnin sites in null?” Well, one of the things we do is “sell” WHs we find & raid that are (a) empty and have (2) decent PI for POS fuels… there are forums where one can offer said W-space Ether Estate for sale and conversely, look for hole to buy. And, like most Capsuleer Captains in New Eden we each take on one or two Apprentice Lieutenants (often referred to as our A’Lts), these are Capsuleer Pilots in Training. They are very, very carefully screened and selected pilots in whom we can trust implicitly with corp and personal business. Some will remain in Empire and we will direct their efforts to find a suitable Wormhole for the corp.

Phase One:

So we started taking down “Serenity Station” our Large Minmatar Planetary Orbital Station… Ugh. You see our Serenity, well she was a real Deth Star…

(A) we had up a helluva lot moar defense mods than we could ever online all at once (this being the point of course, if you bash us and incap any particular mod, I have MANY moar I can just online to continue bashing you back with…) and

(2) it also meant a helluva lotta unloadin and offlinin and unachorin needed to be done… ugh.

And I put most of this all up before Crusibble and the Great Anchoring Nerf, THAT was Epic Ugh.

We get all but the minimum onlined Defenses down and stored, we get the Assy Arrays, Refineries and the Lab broke down and crated up... all the internal structures but one Ship Maint Bay and “Haven” the Lrg Ship Assy Array packed up and ready to go. Now we need fair weather (a good hole, Hisec or a 1 hop low) and all of us together. Well, “the best laid plans…” as they say, aren’t ours. One of our Directors gets his ships out… and heads for null. The other has ‘things he has to do’ some place he refers to cryptically only as “Floridah” in “RL”, (secretive bastard)… and so he is not around much.

So I start flying my ships out to Jigga, I buy a buncha shuttles in Jigga and do 3, 40+ hop round trips, bringin in 3 of my BCs in only to find out Jigga is simply where the Freighter is docked that we are going to use for the move, not the staging system we are supposed to bring our ships to. The owner is going to bring it to the nearest Empire hole to the C2 in a few days and pick up everthang… the actual staging system, the one where our Jump Freighter pilot can come and get our stuff to take back to the 0.0 system we are going to be staying in, is… 30+ hops… the other way… OH EFF ME.

Needless to say I am a little put out by the news and as the trolling and LOLing begins I am able to pull up the Neocom logs and prove I was told that was where one of our corpmates was taking his ships ‘for the move’… hence I had every reason to believe, and no one advised me otherwise, that that was where I had to take my ships… gratefully the trolling stopped and was followed up by, “Well look, we can fix that this way…” While I was, and am, very grateful to our JF pilot for his offer of several very inconvenient for him possible solutions, I left those ships where they were and just contracted em to the Freighter pilot, I trust him and he had to come out this way anyway right? As for the rest of the ships I am taking to null, as you can imagine I spent a truly amazing amount of time moving them all over EvE the past several days. =]

Tur’s Fleet

Anyhoo, I get almost all of my ships out, and in the process realize I own wayyy too many ships so I put a few unrigged Rifters up for sale and a buncha rigged Rifters and rigged Thrashers and a Procurer up on contract. I move the ones Ima keep in Empire to our Hisec Offices and the one I want to bring with me to the last 0.5 sys from the lowsec staging system. So far so good, the losec holes we have been having are decent, and we had a hisec or two in the stat C2. I haven’t lost any ships (yet, repeatedly impact knuckles on xylem of dried cellulose) and I am ready to make some Indy runs. I make several with my Mastodon transport and get the bulk of the mods and assets in the Ship Assy arrays out of the hole staged in the closest station and then from there into storage at the HQ... so far, so good.

We go campin:

The next day we get back to workin on all of this and I am scanning the days holes when what do I find... the newest D382, our static C2, is unoccupado… there’s just an offline Gallente tower with 10 incapped guns and their public Corp records read like that happened moar than a month ago, hmm… I do a quick DScan…OH Damn! 30 combat sites! WooHoo! Oh yea, we gotta rape this hole before we go nulla. OK, so while we have a connecting hole I real quick throw up a Small Minnie Spike, a Ship Maint Bay and the Sm Ship Assy for storage. Bring in and online the minimum needed hardeners and a few guns so she can at least go down fighting…

Serenity Base Defenses

Yea I said ‘go down fighting”. You see small towers are really nothing moar than targets in W-space… I actually refer to it as “the ‘tent’ in the raid hole.” If anyone gets at all serious about taking it down, it won’t last long. But… for what we want to do it is an acceptable option. It gives us a minimum amount of protection and somewhere to store multiple ships, which you cannot do otherwise as your one lone clone can’t logoff in multiple ships.

By the end of the day I have the ‘tent’ all setup, many SS BMs (Safe Spot Book Marks) are made and I log off content we are on schedule in Phase One AND we have a nice chunk ‘o ISK to make to boot. Finding an empty hole with a high site count was sorta like a G’bye present from W-space… =]

Serenity Base… our tent in the raid C2

Then we get camped:

The next day my CEO and I are hopin to complete the move out AND our Friendly but Not-so Neighborhoodly Freighter pilot is bringing his Freighter, for free, to pick up ships etc. The for free is cause he was working with us on mining in our home hole and he has a LOT of stuff and a number of his own ships in our POS, so he would have been coming to get them anyway instead of moving them one by one. Well, to say it did not turn out as planned is a wee bit off the mark…

I had scanned down the A239, the stat lo and is was a suc hole… and Vik (Your Friendly Freighter pilot) had come out and run my ships to the staging system. He said he was gonna head on back to his home sys if we weren’t ready and the holes were not good, I said Okay but that I had not yet scanned the D382, which was listed as having a stat hi, and so he decided to wait… well, he shouldn’t have. Turns out his corp had a War Dec going live that very day. Anyhoo, I was still scanning when he said they had a dec coming on and I said well get the hell outta here man!

Well, he thought he could make it… you guessed it, he dint. Obelisk Freighter w/ 3 Hulks in the hold asploded inna horrible fire, Damn. And if that wasn’t bad enough… 2 days later, he does the shuttle fast-fast thing to get to our new stat lo so he can get his ships out and… we are camped by the Tuskers. My CEO is killed and podded, with the loss of an Itty V, thankfully carrying nothing irreplaceable or outstandingly expensive, and podding happens, it’s EVE.

So we do the waiting game thing and after almost 3 hours, we put a CovOps on both sides of the hole and wait some moar… all seems clear. Local looked OK, seemed the gang who attacked AI were no longer in system, course they could have just jumped a gate and were waiting for a cloaky scout to give em the signal to warp in… but it all “looks” clear and it has been 3 hours so we all decide to try for it and we give Vik the greenlight to make the run from the POS and out… and he gets jumped as soon as he warps thru the hole.

He is able to warp back thru but they are right on his heels. On landing inside they pop up a ‘dictor bubble and that’s that… They blow his Apoc and request a ransom for his pod. Little do they know, or care, that his recent losses have drained his wallet and he cannot afford any reasonable ransom… so they pod him. Crap… its EVE and its Wormholes… right?

Vik ends up back in null from when he was incorp down there, I cover the cost of upgrading his clone and the guys there help him bloodjump (slang: The act of purposefully jumping to the location of a medical clone by deliberately being podded) back to hisec. Them damn Tuskers… gotta give em the respect though. We had made a buncha runs in my Mastodon and AI’s Itty V before they jumped AI on an outbound leg. Then they did it right… they played the waiting game, and won another kill for their patience.

Needless to say that was that for the night. AI went and picked up his Hyp from wherever he had docked it and made his way to the raid C2 we had setup the ‘tent’ in and logged for the night… We heard from Strigon and he has the Duck I got as a prize from the C4 raid he is gonna use in the raid C2 and he is on his way back. I stayed up a bit writing up reports, this one among em.

POS Gun Fun:

On a side note, I finally got to use the POS guns… I had a really stoopid number of shuttles in the POS. Some from batches I had brought in for the usual reasons, shuttle are just damned handy and a lot from all the moving ships out part of the last week. You can’t repackage mods and ships in a POS and you can’t put unpackaged ships in a Transport or a Freighter… you can store/scoop them into a Capital like an Orca or a Carrier… but we sold our carrier earlier this week and lost our Orca some time ago in the hole.

We badly need another Orca, but “need in one hand and shite in the other and see which fills faster” as they say. So how did I solve this dilemma? Would you believe I risked multiple losec runs to save an effin fleet of 10K ISK each shuttles?? Uh UH!! I flew about half of em out to my 200Km from the POS Relay Point, ejected, podded back into the POS, took control of a Med Arty Battery and had me some fun.

After I popped all the shuttles that I had dropped at the Relay Point, I changed the POS aggression settings, flew another shuttle out, ejected, gave my pod a burst of thrusters and watched the POS herself turn the shuttle into a wreck inna cloud of smoke… Cool, rinse and repeat until there were no moar shuttles left… sigh. Later AI had come back to the POS and he played with the guns blasting the wrecks to clean up the sky as they were clutterin up his dscan… right, I heard him smilin as he said it. =]

So, we still have the last few mods, the spike and a ship or two left to move out, and now something like 35 or moar sites in the raid C2 still to run… I got out of our old C2 tonight made the 4 lows out to hisec and am now doing some last minute ship moving and finishing this report before I head to the tent in raid C2 for the night…

Monday, January 23, 2012

"A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other such tears. With the Goons' Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of mining ships there were calls for an "opt out of PvP" option.

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online? Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?"

Answer…

For me, this is a non-question... a semantically null discussion as regards MMO virtual realities. EVE already is far safer than RL ever can be... In EVE, everyone is IMMORTAL. You cannot DIE.

What people want, what they are crying about is not “safety”… it is the protection and permanence of their STUFF.

They dunt wanna LOSE any of the ISK, or THINGS they have gathered, made or bought with ISK in the game. Whether it is ships, ore, mods, POS(es), blingy faction mods, simple 10K ISK implants to a set of 1.5 Billion “Slave” implants… their very first Rifter all proudly T1 fitted or a Nyx they’ve had since ‘05.

What they want… is their STUFF safe from attack and theft and destruction… and I say your ASS is already Immortal, your STUFF isn’t… shutup.

Rational…

EVE is the first MMORPG to be a ‘true’ virtual REALITY in “most” respects. In RL, as In EVE, there is NO WHERE that you are perfectly safe from attack, theft, scams, griefing, being bullied and ripped off… but unlike RL, in EVE “you” CAN’T DIE.

Yes, your current clone can be shot, lazered, railgunned, blastered, asploded and burnt to a crackly crisp in a horrible fire, flash frozen in the depths of the black, scooped up and put on display or sold at auction… and YOU will wake up in a nice fresh clean clone... EVERYTIME. So you lost some STUFF… so what? YOU are still here and you will certainly still have (almost) all the skills you have already trained (unless you were flyin a T3). But the STUFF (and any skills) you lost CAN BE REPLACED. You just gotta have the guts and desire to get off yer pod gooey ass and get back out there. IT’S A GAME.

The problem is… it is the first game to have REAL RISK. Loss in EVE COSTS. And the cost can be very high… but you cannot die. So get some perspective people. The fact that there is real loss in EVE is the very thing that makes it so very special… and the main reason that universal and inescapable potential for loss MUST never be nerfed in ANY respect. If you do… even a little… then we are all just playing WoW.

Life is a challenge, a constant fight to find safety and prosperity for yourself and your heirs. EVE mimics life in that very challenge and constant fight to safely go about one’s pursuit of wealth, power or peace in a world that IS NOT “SAFE”.

Does this mean there are players who wont play EVE? That there are players who will be driven away?

Yes it does... so? CCP knows this and accepts that EVE is unique and is not for everybody, they made it this way. It is for us... for those who are willing to fight for what we want and fight to keep what we have.

I am not good at PvP… my record is basically 50/50… so I dunt suc at it either, but I always get the shakes… I always get an adrenaline rush the likes of which is damn near incapacitating… and NO OTHER PvP in any other game does this to me… or ever has… why? Loss. Real, measurable, expensive, painful, costly, aggravating, effin LOSS.

I live in a wormhole... I have lost a lot in my time here... we lost a Noctis with 30 melted Nanoribbons in the hold last night to a Stealth Bomber attack inna C4 wormhole... 30 MNRs = 240Million ISK at current Jita prices... So what did we do? Cry, whine and moan? Rage log? Nope... we warped in to save what we could, the pilot got his POD out OK so we went back to running the rest of the sites, got a new Noctis and salvaged and looted the rest of the sites, with tighter security... what else? Its EVE dammit.

This is why some players get so upset… Carebears and Greifers, ALL of them dunt wanna loose the STUFF they have worked so long and hard to collect or create… Carebear or Geifer, it takes TIME, lots of precious time and effort to skill up, then to generate or collect or steal or destroy then loot and salvage the STUFF ingame need to sell outright or to make other STUFF ingame that they can then sell for other STUFF they want ingame… and because of this, that STUFF has real emotional meaning and value to all of them.

Neither side wants to lose they STUFF… the difference is one side, the carebears don’t want to have to fight for it. They want a safe place or a safe way to go about doing the things they do to get STUFFwithout any risk to the STUFF itself.

The Griefers also dunt wanna lose they STUFF, they just accept the risks and act accordingly and when they get griefed and lose they STUFF, well… they unnerstand and/or they try to get even… but either way they usually dunt run to the forums and rage and cry about it.

If CCP removes the element of real loss… of real risk. Eve will no longer be EVE. EVE is a game, but take away risk and It will become just a game… it will lose the very deep emotional connections it has for ALL of its players… because without risk… there is no VALUE.

You cannot VALUE that which you cannot LOSE.

=============================================

Afterthoughts...

I probably should have added this in the original post but, all of the above is based on this:

My small corp lives in a wormhole. We have for many months now. We make our living primarily running Sleeper sites, both in our homehole and especially in the static C2s that pop up everyday...We have made some atrocious ISK upon occasion. We have lost a number of ships, maybe less, maybe moar, than we would have in Empire, I dunt know. I DO know that we are not at all PvP adverse But we are not a griefer corp... one of our members is definitely quite bloodthirsty, but... we consider ourselves moar a carebadger corp rather than carebear or greiferbear.

As stated we are not against PvP... you can't be an live in wormholes... try it, you'll soon see what I mean. But we also do not spend the majority of our time actively seeking PvP. We spend moar time on making ISK and planning for the future, IE what ships we are training for, building our next carrier, or Orca... and we let PvP take care of itself.

By that I mean we raid other WHs as they pop up... if there's people inside, and we feel the odds are in our favor... we setup an attack and try and take em. Why? Why not? It's a WORMHOLE. The deadliest space in EVE and we are wormholers. If we feel the odds are not in our favor, we mass close the hole and see what pops up next. If the hole is unoccupado, or has Towers but no one 'awake', then we scan the sites, if there are enough to make it worth the risk, we run em.

We have lost ships to raids we have done, we have lost ships to being raided, we have killed in raids and taken ships as prizes, we have killed some who have raided us... but we are not a PvP corp, or a greifer corp, or a pirate corp...

We are a corporation of like minded individuals who live a virtual life in New Eden, where we work, and fight, to make this virtual life for ourselves and our membership... life in New Eden is not safe and it can be very, very harsh at times... sometimes for us, and sometimes for those who cross us. but it is always WORTH it and it is NEVER boring. =]

“The brainchild of the Blogfather, Crazy Kinux, blog banters are single subjects discussed across the EVE blogging community. It encourages the sharing of ideas and cross-pollenation of readership. All in all a healthy thing for a community.“

During daily operations in the home C2 Capt. ElRandir had scanned down all signatures. There were four Wormholes present. The A239 (Static Losec) was the same, the D382 (Static C2) was new, there was a K162 that led to Hisec and a K162 that led to “Dangerous Unknown Space” (unexplored).

A Magnate, "Avantia Jovakko [K=PRO](Magnate)" was scouting for the Enemy Fleet. About 15 minutes after NC1M warped in and began scouting, the Enemy Fleet broke off Sleeper Ops and retired from the field exiting thru an unknown WH, leaving wrecks behind. We waited hoping they would return as there were valuable Sleeper wrecks left behind. Finally as the timer was running down, Tsra attempted to L&S the wrecks but to no avail. The Magnate returned and scanned down the K162 back to our C2. All of us but NC1M holed up in our POSes and acted as if we weren’t there.

The Magnate transited into our C2 and began scouting. Tsra and I undocked and I took my Hurricane thru the D382 and Sovereign Meari and I setup a CAMP (Combat Ambush Maneuver Position) on the inside. Anchored a Med Warp Bubble and we took up CAMP stations at the hole. Tsra went back into our C2. The Magnate eventually returned to the D382 and did not immediately warp thru. Tsra was able to scram, web and kill the Magnate and sequentially kill the Magnate’s POD.

We disengaged the CAMP and fleeted up inside the D382. NC1M scanned down the Enemy Fleets exit hole and scouted in his Falcon. Inside the D382 he engaged a Drake, "Drake [K-PRO](Drake)", and a Hurricane, "JA netta diamond [K-PRO](Hurricane)", he called for reinforcements. We warped in on him, the Hurricane jumped thru the hole and the Drake broke and warped to P1, I pursued. Tsra, NC1M and Sovereign Meari warped thru to the C4. The Drake immediately warped back to the WH as did I. He warped through but I had to wait down the "polarity" timer.

I finally warped in and engaged the Hurricane with scram but he went down to Tsra before I could engage my guns. I then engaged the Drake, the pilot decided at now three to one odds to eject. We disengaged all DPS keeping the Drake scrammed and webbed. I warped back thru to our C2, ejected in my POD and returned to claim the Drake. I took the Drake as prize back to our POS, reshipped back to my Hurricane and returned to fleet inside the C4.

Shortly after rejoining the fleet a Raven, "jonno aldeun [K-PRO](Raven)", an Augoror, "Gohan Katana [K-PRO](Augoror)", and "JA netta diamond” returned in another Hurricane, "JA netta diamond [K-PRO](Hurricane)". They landed on grid and attacked us. We primaried the Raven, once it was scrammed and webbed by both Tsra and I, I switched and scrammed, webbed and neuted the 2nd Hurricane putting all my DPS and drones on the Raven until it was destroyed. Tsra & NC1M concentrated their attack with me on the Raven then they took down the Augoror. After the Raven I turned all DPS and drones on the Hurricane and was eventually joined by Tsra and NC1M. At that point the pilot ejected and we disengaged all DPS but kept the Hurricane scrammed and webbed incase an Enemy pilot tried to retake the ship. Wyatt Franz came out in his POD and claimed the Hurricane as prize.

After this engagement the Enemy hailed us in local and we returned GF. They then hailed Sovereign Meari privately and he enjoined them in a discussion of the recent engagement. They requested safe passage and this was granted.

During this convo the members of K-PRO requested assistance in the form of advice and training in tactics and fits and came to an agreement with Sovereign Meari. K-PRO is now BLUE to Astraeaus Alliance and they have requested our assistance and we may join them in future Sleeper Combat Operations in K-PROs home C4 in the near future.

Tactical Review:
HELPeR/HBHI Fleet-
We are all well experienced and highly skilled pilots flying well fit PVP Ships. We have a year of experience flying together in fleet and in many losec and W-space roams, raids and fights.

We had 3 well fit PVP DPS BCs and a very experienced EWar/CovOps scout/jammer.

Katana Productions [K-PRO]-
A very VERY new corp with very inexperienced pilots flying a mix of PVE fit BCs and a BS.

They had PVE fit BSs & BCs, one scout killed early on and no EWar support.

Summation:
We had the initiative, we were on the offensive, we used our CovOps scouting and EWar to full effect. We are experienced, work well together as a team and have a very good FC. We had strong PVP fit ships with multiple scram and web and Ewar available to us.

We had the upper hand from the outset.

Note:
K-PRO was in a C4 in W-space because they were avoiding the Corporate Wars incessantly waged against new corps in Empire which had taken a heavy toll on them very early in their corps history. W-space IS the deadliest space in EVE, but it is also very secluded and “apart” from Empire. Locator Agents cannot find you in W-space and I have yet to see any proof of anyone being able to actually search out a specific W-space System intentionally.

They were actually safer (IE from War Deccers and Empire gankers and pirates) in the C4, running sites in the Static C2 (they were NOT running sites in the C4, far above their capabilities ATM) and making the random Empire runs to sell off their L&S and buy ships ect. and returning to the C4.

However, this does leave them open to raids by people like us. As bad as it was, four ships lost and one corpmate pod killed. It was probably better than what they had gone through, and would continue to go through, if they had stayed in Empire.

A ‘course… then I wouldn’t have this nice new-to-me Drake… now would I? =]

Sunday, January 8, 2012

It started like this, I recently lost my Sleeper Mael under… well, let’s just say, really unpleasant and unexpected circumstances, and I sorta came back to Hisec to get away from my troubles and think things over as ‘twere…

So as we have needed new Hisec offices for a while anyway I decided to go ahead and set em up as I had done the research and had decided on a system and station that fits our needs just a few hops from Dodi. We sorta base outta Dodi as it is very central to all the major hubs being closely equidistant… 14 from Rens, 15 from Jita and 16 from Amarr, and Dodixie is a minor hub in its own right. I rented the offices and took my time moving all my stuff from Dodi to the new station over the last few days.

Two very interesting things happened…

(1) As I needed some ISK so I decided to put up with the grind and run a few mishes. My best local agent in our new Empire HQ was an L3. As I dint have a BC or BS in Empire and was sorta left with few choices so I decided to run them in my Navy Issue Vexor. As a Minnie I have always relied on guns and outflyin my eminies… with the Vex I decided to try something new and use droans as my primary weapon and kite the NPCs. The fights were moar exciting as I was slightly moar challenged in a Navy Cruiser rather than waffle stompin everything in sight inna Battleship (which can be kinda fun too but can get old fast…).

This was more fun and I have really enjoyed missioning for the first time in a long time. It isn’t ‘new’ and I know too well just how to handle the NPCs… yer still fighting a limited AI after all, but add in the element of a little risk and it becomes fun again.

(2) I have been skilling up to get into the Prowler and Mastodon… the Indy Transport ships. The Prowler is the Minnie Blockade Runner (a cloaky covert hauler) and the Mastodon is the Minnie Deep Space Transport (strong defensive heavy hauler). I need these of course because the C2 WH we live in has a static Lowsec hole and most of the time we have to come in and out of the hole usually via 1 to 3 lowsec hops but we have seen as bad as 9 lows and we have upon occasion had a hole pop out where we have 1 or 2 lows then a few NULLS then moar lows to hisec…. Yuch.

So I was checking my skills… and found I had also at some point cleared the hurdle for the Procurer ORE mining barge… really? Hmmm, a very Spokian “Interesting” w/ one raised eyebrow feeling came over me.

I have been getting moar involved and interested in the Industry side of things ever since we hired a miner to the corp and built a carrier. Plus we have found ourselves short on POS fuels a few times and that simply should not happen with PI allowing you to make ALL but the ice products ‘in house’ as twere and we aren’t fully realizing the potential the PI and mining the hole offers.

PI Pickup at the Plasma Planet

All of the above lead to me finding myself in hisec with no immediate plans to return to the hole ASAP, and an unusual interest in all things related to mining… so I bought and fitted up a Procurer and went a mining we will go, a mining we will go… Hi, Hi, the derrio a mining we will go… just to see what all the fuss was about.

It was very weird and I now know I’ll never be a full time miner but still… It was not altogether unpleasant. I knew I was making ISK, though not as much nor as fast as I would like, however I was bring productive and while not AFK, I was able to devote moar time to the left screen, bloggin and such, than usual when ingame. Plus the whole “EVE is just a front end for Excel” thing kinda suits me. All the complex numbers one gets into when one delves into Ores and minerals and refining and cycle times et al… it IS all sorta interesting.

I can see mining as something I will skill up for and use in those times when I want to still be productive without having to devote all my attention to the gameplay. When I want to make ISK in Empire, or take advantage of the A, B, Cs in W-space or generate the minerals to make Ammo, droans and ships in the POS.

So far it has been interesting in figuring out where to mine… You can’t anchor Giant Secure cans in any system above 0.7 so I had to pick a .7 system, close to my main station, with at least one station to base out of, a good number of ABs (Asteroid Belts) to work in, then how best to anchor Giant cans (whatta joke… a ‘giant’ can that holds one seventh as much as a Jet Can), how best to ‘work’ a field, what kind of return I can expect with a Procurer, what ores are best to mine and is refining or selling as ores better, etc., etc. …

As for the hauling aspect, after you mine up the ores and fill all yer cans you gotta get it back to a station to refine or sell. I anchor 9 Giant Secure Cans at the belt I am working. That is how many fit in the hold of my Mammoth… and that pushes my total cargo m3 from 27,129.27 without the cans to 35,229.27 with, an additional 6,300m3 of ore per full can run… it’s not a ‘lot’ but every m3 counts in this game I am told. Now I don't unanchor my belt cans, I simply keep 9 in the hold and trans the ore from each belt can to a can in the hold.

So far, and I understand I am in the entry level ORE Mining Barge, I am not ‘displeased’ with my income… no it is nowhere near what I can make running Sleepers, but I have been told over and over again that if you really get into it the ISK you ‘can’ make mining is really up there. While I don’t wanna be a “miner” for a living… I do want to be able to take full advantage of the very lucrative ores available in the -1.0 space that is W-space.

We get Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite… the 3 most valuable ores in EVE and available ONLY in W-space and NULL. Gravimetric, or Grav sites are usually full of all three plus many other ores, but the Big Three are where the ISK is at for W-Space mining… thought ALL of it should be mined and used, either for manufacturing or for sale in Empire. It is an ISK faucet we have never really cracked open, hence my interest in it… if I’m gonna mine, I wanna do it competently.

As for the other side of mining, getting ganked and the mind numbing drone of the mining lazers turnin your brain to mush… I have “yet” to be attacked by other than the usual Rats… and my lone Warrior II can handle them nicely thank you… as for a real Pirate attack… I have had a few Orange fellows fly in and look me over… I can only assume I was not worth the loss of their ships as I am in a Procurer, not a really valuable ship and they warped away without incident...

And I just turn the sound down on the lazers. =P

I do one thing I have not seen other miners do, and it makes mining, for me, a far moar ‘active’ thing than it seems to be for all the others I have seen out there mining … I string my cans in a line on the inside curve of the belt… and I start at a can, align to a warpable that has something opposite it and go to just over three quarters speed… when I pass out of range of the can I turn 180, realign to the other warpable, go to speed… then cruise past the can to just out of range and repeat… mining the whole time. I drop the ore in the can when it is in range. This way I am (1) moar involved in mining than just sitting there watching and (b) I am, except for a short period at turnover, ALWAYS aligned and at speed ready to warp out if I feel the need.

When a can is full I setup the same routine on the next can and rinse and repeat. Until I do get attacked I won’t know if this is a viable tactic or if I am just wasting my time and will end up like everyone else and just sit there waiting for the gankers to come…I have been told, it WILL happen eventually, but it does not happen so often as to make mining a worthless occupation, otherwise why would so many do it? We’ll see…

Hey! It could happen...

So that’s about it for me… other than a night spent CO bashin so our Ally corp can put up another POCO, I have been mining and mishin in hisec solo… fun fun fun. =]

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Just a note to let them as what read the stuff what as comes from my brain here… The holidays have been very good to me and mine, hope all of you have had happy and safe holidays and have had a chance to reconnect with kith & kin.

It’s nice to reacquaint once self with those people who always makin noise in the background and tryin to get you interested in things that you and I know are simply not as interesting, or important, as…

what one is skilling up for now, and what to skill for next,

what fuels are needed, and by when, for the POS (or POSes),

keeping “them” (no matter who they be) out of your system(s),

and all the other fascinating things we all “do” here in New Eden.

But that’s what these dead of winter days of gatherings & gift giving, family & frens and dining & drinking… (til you puke up multicolored fruit cake… which BTW, IS real) are for, right?

As for Flyin the Deadly skies of EVE… Well, we three, the Directors of HBHI, were once again able to come together in the Real and discuss matters of great import and other nonsense as we spent Boxer Day evening running a few sites in our homehole and knocking back a few shots (we put paid to a fifth of Tattoo).

I will fess up and state, for the record, that I in my turn became somewhat befuddled from the excess of small glasses of that smokey sweet Ruum. So much so that I lost track of time and warped my Noctis to the last 2 sites… too late. Yup… we, (read “I”) got to chattin a bit and the wrecks all went ‘pop’ afore I got there… oh well, so it goes huh?

So grab a Grolsh from the Beer Tree out on the ramp, sit down and let's talk spacehips... =]

Incarna to Crucible, 2011 was a very interesting year for EVE as I am sure most will agree…Let’s hope 2012 brings as much, fun, excitement and change as 2011 did… as the Chinese saying goes,

Them as what follow me...

Graphiti...

Round and round we go...

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"Maybe we're not that different after all and I have my own reality to get to grips with."Absence of Substance

Now THAT is wisdom...

We are, each and alone, the absolute center of our subjective 'verse... this is the way of life.To see another's POV as if it were your own... this is the way of truth...To allow that some others have POVs you cannot and will never understand, and yet accept them as they are, this is the way of acceptance...To kill them all without rancor or anger, but in brotherhood... this is the way of EVE.

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